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Thursday, April 12, 2012

J: "J" names in gamebooks

I'm a little late getting this post out (surprise surprise), but I've also been thinking about this challenge. I've written some fairly thoughtful posts already, but I have now said most of the heavy stuff that I have in mind. Furthermore, I'm trying to complete a novel by the end of the month, and that takes a lot of time and energy.

So, the rest of my posts for this event will be a little shorter, often linking to someone else awesome or relevant. This time, we have three "J" characters to discuss, two of whom are real people, gamebook authors, and one of whom is the lead character in a gamebook.

JJ Shultz: The lead character of "Getting Dumped," JJ Shultz breaks the mold by being a romance heroine, rather than an action hero. I, personally, am thrilled to see gamebooks branching out into other genre's, and all congratulations to Tawna Fenske for taking that step. Furthermore, JJ is a charming character: a girl's girl who likes to go out in pink hardhats and operate heavy machinery to crush things. Check out the reviews for "Getting Dumped" on Goodreads.(Although be aware, this is different from most gamebooks in that you only get to make a few choices. It's mostly straight text. But I think that's also a valid, and very interesting, way of doing it.)

Jonathan Green: Jonathan Green is one of the most established gamebook authors today, with a long line of works written for Fighting Fantasy, the recent, award-winning "Temple of the Spider God," and many other works, some gamebooks and some straight fiction. He is also one of the go-to authors for writing Warhammer novels (dream job, right???) Check out his blog at http://jonathangreenauthor.blogspot.com/. He is also participating in the April A-Z challenge.

last but not least...

Jamie Thomson: Jamie Thomson has an impressive portfolio of gamebooks under his belt, including Duel-Master, Falcon and Way of the Tiger (all co-written with Mark Smith), and Fabled Lands (co-written with Dave Morris). He's also written for Fighting Fantasy, including being co-author of Talisman of Death, my 10 year old self's favorite gamebook of all time. Oh, if only I had found some of his other works when I was that age. He recently published Dark Lord: The Teenage Years, under the auspices of his own new publishing house, Fabled Lands LLP. Go check out a review for Dark Lord: the Teenage Years, which is supposed to be hilarious. Can't wait to read it myself.